“We all imagined his hesitant, stammering manner
Merely concealed his heart’s strong core,
But he had his misery, his hesitant stammering manner
And nothing more”
– Mary Megan Scorato’s poem for Dr. White
Mount Misery by Samuel Shem

***

Old cotton in my coat just married with new leather
I wonder if eleven years will bring at least another seven
and if I pray to Jesus and the saints and Holy Mary
my heart may come to life and fall in love with Jenny…

The coat I bought in Central Store I never sewed a patch
it’s like that constant feeling you have known but rarely had,
I did not see at first nor did I really want, it got imposed
but soon I fell for good, so down that no one understood…

Old cotton tainted brown it lived and traveled all around
the stories bound to tell are more than I could spell
had I for each a nickel my words would touch not tickle
and the image that it sells makes the good girls slowly melt…

Cotton coat with dark-brown leather suites me like a feather
like the letters that I wrote when bouncing off the heavens
and the late night promises while holding hands together
it turns me into a gentleman, a fellow with good manners…

But when I put on my leather coat everything turns dark
in the cotton dreams that follow I’m a giant built from sparks
I crush and burn and love the thousand miles of road ahead
and nothing’s going to stop me from blowing up your bed…